mid/late tournament stealing

Hey all,

I'm having trouble determining what range of hands to steal pots with. Mainly, I find myself often sitting with around 10-16 BB's in the mid/late stages of a MTT tournament, when blinds and antes have become a big factor. Usually I have at least 1 guy to my left who is around my chip stack or much greater, and typically have at least 2-3 others immediately to my left who have a smaller, but still sizable, chip stack compared to me. For instance I have 18,000 chips, and V1 immediately to my left has around 21,000 chips, and on his immediate left are two stacks (lets say V2 and V3) that have around 10-12k chips. Blinds are 500/1000 with 125 antes. I know this isn't a total table picture, but these people on my left worry me the most when I try to steal. Assume it's folded to me in the CO.

What range am I attempting to steal with, and what bet sizes am I putting out? I don't feel like a min-raise is respected, as it screams steal to me. In fact, occasionally i'll min raise with a premium hand to induce a reraise by a smaller stack thinking I'm stealing (not sure if it's a good strategy at all though). Typically here I'll get a hand like off suit connectors, suited connectors, or a high/suited ace like A9os or A7s, and am unable to figure out if I should steal with the hand or what Im betting to steal. I don't want to be too much and pot-commit myself, but not too little so that it doesn't have the desired effect.

I hope I explained myself well enough, if not i'd be happy to elaborate on what i'm getting at.

You should read the 2nd Volume of the Harrington On Hold'Em series. It talks all about how to master your endgame strategy.

For your example...If I was in middle/late position and it folded around to you with those hands, I would push. You only have about 7 table revolutions left before the blinds take you down and you need to pick up some extra chips. Pushing your stack will make it a game buster for those smaller stacks if they lose, and even for the guy to your left, if he called and lost, he would only have 3k left, or one table round, which would basically kill him off. So you would most like have it folded to the blinds.

I think if you are going to try and steal the blinds you need to do it with some degree of aggression. If the SB or BB want to protect their blinds make them pay for it. I do notlike your comment about limping to induce a raise or a call. If you have the best hand it might change after the flop regardless of what you have. This can work, of course it can, but you could have AA and end up losing to J10 or similar on 2 pairs or a straight or a flush etc. Either make him fold or make him pay to call you. As for the cards you have well the better the hand the beter your chances but quite often it is not the cards which win you this hand it is how you play it.

Thanks for the quick replies. Yea my strategy of a min raise with a premium hand isn't great, sometimes i'll use it if I know the guy to my left will re-raise me 99% of the time when he's on the button, but it has gotten me into some trouble so I've dropped it.

I actually have the Harrington book laying around (somewhere) back at home, so I wont be able to get it until later =( I read a bit but decided to shelve it until I got the time to really dedicate to understanding it. I'll have to give it a look.

What hands would be plausible to attempt a steal from mid position? Or is it one of those 'every now and then' things that I can only really use when my table image supports it?

I believe you have the wrong concept. The thing is that you steal when
you find yourself in the right position to steal the chips, not always when
you have a certain hand or even when you want to. Some examples would
be when you sense that the other ppl are weak or are looking to catch,
as well as when the hands are folded to you and ur in late position. It all
depends really. Now you keep mentioning what kind of hand you should
do this with... well it doesnt matter what you have! cause they will be all
bad hands! thats why its called STEALING the pot. What matters is what they
have, so look out for that and youll be fine.

Great post man!! I have had Harrington Vol. 1 and was considering buying Vol. 2, but hadn't. I'm definately going to go out and buy it so that I can beef up my late stage MTT game too. GL!!!

You should. It will help you with your late game a lot as long as you understand all of the concepts that he implements. Sometimes if you are lucky you can find them cheap on Amazon or eBay.